twitter

The answer to this question really depends on how you look at it. From my stand point it is worth it.

However, others may not want to put the time into developing their own twitter following.

Some may even say that it is foolish to spend time on twitter. Of course, I disagree. And I HAVE spent a lot of time developing a large following.

At the time of this writing @davesnape is currently sporting over 90,000 twitter followers.

Why Dave?

Good question. In fact, even I have wondered at times why I was spending so much time on twitter.

If you look at it from a marketing perspective, very few sales come directly from twitter.

It truly is a micro blogging platform and the same basic reasons for why one blogs could easily apply on twitter as well.

With one exception: Conversations and interactions can occur MUCH faster on twitter.

The information exchange can be very fast and mutually beneficial as well. Or, sometimes not.

With bloggers who communicated through commenting systems, it may take a bit longer.

140 Characters

The information shared in each tweet is limited to 140 characters. Therefore, people who communicate on twitter are FORCED to get the point more quickly.

Even if you ‘beat around the bush’ and take 3 tweets to communicate an idea or thought you still did it in 420 characters.

By contrast, many blog posts can easily be that many WORDS.

The Biggest Drawback

This biggest con to working on twitter is the amount of time it takes. You have to spend time engaging followers in conversation. You have to be responsive to those who tweet to you directly (minus spam tweets of course). Many of the same concepts and ideas that apply to regular blogging also apply to Twitter. It is not a whole lot different.

Tell Me What The Benefits Are

1. Exposure is a big benefit. If you are a blogger currently then you know what it is to want people to come to your blog. Everyone wants more people to visit their site. With twitter, I sometimes track my links and I see that I often get 40 or so click throughs within just a few minutes of sending out a link.

2. Getting questions answered – To me this is one of the biggest benefits of utilizing twitter. Say, for example, you have a question about a popular company who’s service you are thinking about utilizing. With 90,000 followers (or perhaps less) you can send out a tweet and very often get a response from someone with an experience to share.

This also works for customer service. When you use, for example, a particular web host and you are having trouble getting the customer service you need a quick tweet to their twitter handle can often get you in touch with someone who can do something. I’ve seen this happen.

And this is purely speculation of course, but it seems to me that when a company is being addressed by someone with a LOT of twitter followers, they may feel a little more pressure to respond quicker and in a more positive way.

The conversation is public after all and their may be people watching. The bigger the numbers, the bigger the potential that others are paying attention.

3. Camaraderie and Commiseration – There is a twitter user, I won’t reveal her identity because I did not ask her permission to do so, who has some experience in investing. Whenever I am in an investment and wondering if I should stay or go, we often get into a discussion about it. She has provided a lot of insight that I would not have otherwise had.

It just plain makes me feel more comfortable to know that I can talk to SOMEONE about what I’m doing who understands. And so it is with Twitter. It is much quicker to find someone whom you can share information with on just about any topic you want to.

Today, I had a conversation with a Navy corpsman. Apparently, he had been following me for a while. When I tweeted about coffee this morning he responded that he usually drinks about 8 cups a day. From there we got into a discussion about the military. He was surprised to discover that I am Ex-Navy myself. From there, the conversation turned to what his plans might be when he leaves the military.

The point is, there is almost always someone to talk to or who may have just the right experience or expertise to ask a question of. Your ability to engage in such a wide variety of conversational topics grows as your number of followers grows. That makes sense because the number of people you have access to grows at the same time.

4. Establishing yourself as an expert. Close to the time I wrote this post a twitter user approached me to ask my advice on the topic of getting more followers. Of course, this type of thing is not just limited to one particular topic.

I often tweet about dental health and I frequently get questions related to that. I run a dental health ecommerce store called Toothy Grins Store. Do you think that answering questions related to my topic helps my brand?

Conclusion

I hope that I have done a good job of explaining why I think it is beneficial to spend time on Twitter. I know that not everyone will agree with me or find value like I do. Right now, I’m curious to hear your comments about what I wrote here. You can comment below and use the tools below to share this post with others who may be interested in it as well.